4 ms·
Sounds like you're not describing what most people would imagine when they hear "shaming a person". You're aiming for some dark-arts psychological jujitsu. Eve
by yboris 6y ago
Sounds like you're not describing what most people would imagine when they hear "shaming a person". You're aiming for some dark-arts psychological jujitsu.
Even if possible, even if maneuvers like this might work on some people, it is likely harder to pull off something like this consistently (thus creating damage along the way), than to just be up-front-and-honest about the good.
People in general want to come to their own conclusions, and not be told what to do. Telling them "do this" can back fire. Having a discussion, where you inquire about their point of view, and structure a conversation as a collaborative exploration, I think, is better.
Peter Singer's drowning child example is a brilliant argument, and I think one everyone ought to hear about. But I'm unsure if "shame" is what it evokes. It raises an incongruity that people then have to reconcile. And if you're kind and encouraging, providing opportunities for them to become better people (by their own light), they will more-likely do it. If they are shamed, they might end up doing mental gymnastics to conclude that "any argument that makes good people I see around me into bad people is a mistaken argument".
I'm happy to discuss this more. As you can guess it's one of my favorite topics.
- colinmhayes 6y agoLet's take the drowning child. Suppose you save the child and walk by the pond again the next day. There's another child drowning. Do you save it? Suppose you walk by the pond everyday and everyday there's another child drowning. Is there a point where you would not save the child? I think the vast majority of people would eventually stop saving the kid. I think that's because shame is what motivates the decision.Eventually they no longer feel shame pushing them to save the children. If they knew there would be a new child drowning everyday on the very first day would they save the child? I think it's likely that many people would not. Saving the child is admitting you have some responsibility for what happens to it. If you know that you will eventually stop it feels a lot better to never admit you're responsible for the child. Shame is a powerful emotion but once people start meta-thinking about it it's easy for them to get around it with mental gymnastics. EA is effectively a utility monster, so it's not surprising to me that people mental-gymnastics their way out of it. EA needs to focus more on tractability of these problems and less on the bottomless pit if they want mass buy in. Because in the end donating to AMF doesn't actually feel that great when you it makes you realize hundreds of thousands of children are dying from preventable disease every year. It feels a lot better to pretend the problem doesn't exist so you can ignore the shame and focus on less important issues instead.
- yboris 6y agoGood to read on this topic: You want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip [0] HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24277190 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24277190 [0] https://psyche.co/ideas/you-want-people-to-do-the-right-thing-save-them-the-guilt-trip https://psyche.co/ideas/you-want-people-to-do-the-right-thin...